There is a saying in an ancient book, "To the vast, as subtle as possible", and I think it can be a good summary of the science of geology - geology is "vast" enough to study the evolution of the earth, human beings, and even the universe, and the magnitude is extremely broad;The "subtle" part is to study fossils, minerals, and even the cells and molecules in fossils, which are far beyond the limits of human observation. But there is no clear line between the two, you have me, I have you.
I am a geological practitioner, amateur like to read, occasionally see things related to geology when reading, feel cordial, casually return, some fortunate and their own field experience can be compared, now through the "to the vast" and "subtle" these two aspects, plus a little of their own field experience, dragonfly like a little water to talk about the geology in my eyes.
1. "To the Masses".
One of the originating theories of modern geology is Laier's proposal of "discussing the present with the past", which belongs to the party level. The so-called "discussing the present with the ancient", translated and translated, means that the fish now swim in the water, and the fish of the past will not run on the mountain. This theory originated in the West and has to do with their seeing fossils. Of course, our ancients also saw fossils. Zhu Xi, a great Confucian in the Song Dynasty, said in a book called "Zhuzi Language": "Today, when you climb the high mountains and look at them, the mountains are all in the shape of waves, which is the way the water floods." I don't know why it froze. Taste the high mountains with snail shells, or raw stones. This stone is the soil of the old days, the snail mussel is the thing in the water, the lower one has changed to be high, and the soft one has changed to be rigid. "When the predecessors saw the fossils on the mountain, they said that the snail was originally a "thing in the water", so why did they run to the mountain?In fact, from Zhu Xi, we can see a little shadow of "discussing the present and the past", but it is a small miss, and it is thousands of miles away. Song Ru likes to find things, and Zhu Xi's reason for this is: The lower part has changed to the top, and the soft one suddenly begins to be strong, why is this?
This is not to be harsh on the ancients, and we, like the ancients, cannot transcend the limitations of the times. Zhang Hongzhao admitted frankly in the book "A Short History of the Development of Geology in China" that although Zhu Zi's thinking is not completely accurate, it is a concept that should be in the embryonic era of geology - he classified the Song Dynasty as the era of the germination of geology in China.
Mr. Zhang Hongzhao
Last year in the field in Pengshui County, Chongqing, our main work was to catalog in the mine. At that time, he ate and lived with the villagers, chatting with the villagers, and he said that there was a cave nearby, and a black liquid could be scooped into the cave, which could be used to make a fire on the wood. I thought, isn't this oil?It's a limestone area, and the environment is very good, and different kinds of fossils can be seen everywhere on the stones on the roadside. There are all kinds of favorable conditions for oil storage. I happened to read Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Writings" in the Song Dynasty before, and the book said: "Oil ......."Born in the water, the sand and stone are mixed with the spring water, and the ...... comes out of the confusionBut it burned like hemp, but the smoke was so thick that the curtain was black. Doubting that its smoke can be used, try to sweep its coal to ink, black light such as lacquer, pine ink is not as good, so it is great. ......This thing will be great in the world, and it will be done from the rest. There is so much oil that it is born in the earth, and it is not as good as pine wood, and it is sometimes exhausted. ......
This passage raises two questions: First, was the word "oil" now invented by Shen Kuo?Second, Shen Kuo predicted that "this thing will be great in the world", and what does "this thing" refer to?Oil or ink after oil burningOn these two issues, Mr. Zhang Hongzhao and Mr. Zhu Kezhen have argued, and Academician Yin Zanxun has also expressed his own views, which can be said to be a small public case in the history of the development of geology.
Mao Jin Ji Guge published "Dream Creek Pen Talk".
Speaking of Zhu Kezhen, I am reminded of a story about him. Around 1951, Moscow State University decided to inlay portraits of world cultural celebrities in the conference hall of the main building, and China was selected by Zu Chongzhi and Li Shizhen. The task of painting them was entrusted to the painter Jiang Zhaohe, and Zu Chongzhi's appearance was based on Zhu Kezhen's painting.
2. "As subtle as possible".
In 2021, I was doing a simple survey and evaluation project in **. There, a large crater was discovered when the previous people were filling out the map. This is a geological map drawn by predecessors, and the ring structure is obvious.
Annular volcanic formations
We surveyed the perimeter and found that someone had drilled. Since it was a volcanic crater, we thought, there won't be a gold mine nearby, right?The drill played by the predecessors may be looking for gold. I had a teacher when I was in college, he said that prospecting is like solving a crime, solving a case requires evidence, the premise is to have clues, such as turning stones, strata and even sedimentary environment, etc., these are the clues left by the "suspect", and you must not be careless. The drill played by the predecessors is one of the clues here. We took some samples and planned to take them to the lab for analysis.
Surveying near the "crater", I found that there is a plant called "shallot" grown on the surrounding hillside, which is commonly used by Sichuan people to make pickles, and the crystal clear scallion is actually one of the "clues". Why do you say that?
The hillside where the shallot grows,
We went out to take samples, and my colleagues were looking at the rolling stones
Duan Chengshi in the Tang Dynasty wrote a book called "Youyang Miscellaneous", which said: "There are green onions on the mountains and silver below;There is shallots [xiè] on the mountains, and gold below;There is ginger on the mountain, and copper and tin below. "This is a plant prospecting method refined by the predecessors, and now it is scientific and reasonable. The current biogeochemical sampling method is to use the leaves of herbaceous plants or woody plants as samples to analyze the elements contained in them, which is in line with the intrinsic thinking method of plant prospecting method.
Part of the book "Youyang Miscellaneous".
From the analysis of the samples we have taken, there are indeed gold anomalies there. The predecessors drilled there, probably to find gold, which in turn verified Duan Chengshi's sentence. We were stationed in the township at the time, and when we asked the staff on the township, they said that there was indeed a certain geological team that had worked there. Unfortunately, they didn't collect their drill data at that time, otherwise they would have gotten some useful information.
Around the station, several elegant black-capped cranes flew in
Recently, I accidentally came across the book "Outline of the Mining Factory in Southern Yunnan" compiled by Wu Qijun - this person is very interesting, he wrote "The Illustrated Examination of Plant Names", the writing is beautiful, and the spirit of "science" is very good-I don't know that he also compiled such a book, and after seeing it, I bought a collated copy of the descendants on the Confucius Internet. When it comes to prospecting clues in the book, "the mountains have onions and silver under them, and the mountains have magnets and copper under them." According to the proofreaders, the "green onion" here refers to the turquoise color of the ore exposed outside. I think this should be problematic, comparing Duan Chengshi's sentence and the actual situation in the field, maybe the "green onion" here is not a false word, it is a real reference, and it is the "green onion" that we often eat.
Detail of "Southern Yunnan Mining Plant".
Another clue that allowed us to determine that there might be gold near that crater was that we found a quartz vein more than a meter wide in a deep ravine near there.
This mineral is also common in daily life, and some household floors are made of quartz. The people of the Wei and Jin dynasties were good at taking cold food and scattering, thinking that it had the effect of prolonging life. Why is it called cold food powder?It is said that after taking it, the body is itchy and hot, and even in the middle of winter, you should be naked to release the heat from your body. There is a joke that says: "During the time of Emperor Xiaowen, the powerful people took stone medicine a lot, which was called stone hair." One day, a poor man was lying down the street, saying that he was hot. They ran to see it, and my companion thought it was strange, and he said, 'I'm stoned.' The companion asked, 'When did you take the stone medicine, and the stone hair was today?'He said: 'Yesterday I ate rice, and there were stones in the rice, and today there are stones.' ’…I don't know if it was created by the ghost who promoted narrowness. Not to mention the joke of this joke, as a whole, it is very clear that the popularity of the stone service at that time was very popular.
The "stone" here is mostly composed of five kinds of minerals. There seems to be a slight evolution of what the "five stones" are, but one of them is quartz. He Yan, a star figure in the Wei and Jin dynasties, according to the "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms", took cold food and scattered food. He took one for beauty, "no powder and white hands", and the other for making up for the room and cheering up. At that time, it was believed that the quartz in the five stone scatters had "good for hair and pleasant for color......The effect of "aphrodisiac".
I also want to talk about the toothbrush that we can't live without. Unearthed cultural relics show that toothbrushes existed in the Song Dynasty, and toothbrushing should have been popularized from the Southern Song Dynasty. The invention of the toothbrush is in the hands of the Chinese, and there is little dispute about this. Before learning to brush our teeth, our ancients first chewed willow branches to purify the mouth, and then invented dental medicine, which is to put a medicine on the teeth to make them look strong and shiny. Yuan Hao asked such a pair of dental medicine recorded in the article "Rubbing Tooth Prescription" in Volume 3 of "Continuation of Yi Jianzhi": "Poria cocos,."Plaster, keelOne or two eachCold Water StoneTwo and a half, Angelica dahurica half a tael, fine spice five coins;Stone SwallowThe big one is one, the small one is a pair, the end (wipe) it, and the teeth are rubbed in the morning and evening. ......He is more than 90 years old, and his teeth are not open, and there are no wind insects. Wang Wen is also ninety, and he can still eat meat. Believe in the gods of this side also. "The minerals involved here are: gypsum, keel, cold water stone and stone swallow. The person mentioned in the article, 90 years old, can still hold a big stick bone and gnaw, and his teeth are not loose at all, isn't it amazing?What is the cold water stone here?And the stone swallow, is it the kind of brachiopod fossil that is said in geology?
There is a medicine called dragon bone, which is of course not a real dragon bone, and generally refers to a large mammalian fossil. The discovery of the oracle bone inscription and the cave man in Beijing, which shocked China and the rest of the world, is said to have been discovered by scholars from traditional Chinese medicine stores and pursued all the way. One year I went to Suining to go out into the wilderness, where there are mostly hilly landforms, and the strata are mainly Jurassic. I asked a few of them, and they all said they came in from a big pharmacy. Of course, dinosaurs are not found in big pharmacies, I know that. It seems that emulating the former sages is far from being as simple as I thought. My dream of digging up fossil dinophils in the area was extinguished.
This actually leads to another very important question: the relationship between minerals and traditional Chinese medicine. Li Shizhen's famous "Compendium of Materia Medica" - as mentioned above, in addition to Zu Chong, the portraits of world cultural celebrities inlaid in the conference hall of the main building of Moscow University also include Li Shizhen. Zu Chongzhi painted according to Zhu Kezhen's appearance, what about Li Shizhen?Jiang Zhaohe painted it in the appearance of his famous father-in-law, Xiao Longyou. - There is a special "gold and stone department", which is almost entirely minerals. Mr. Wang Jiayin, a geologist, compiled the mineral strips in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" into a book called "Mineralogical Historical Materials in the Compendium of Materia Medica";Including Zhang Hongzhao's book "Shi Ya", from a cultural point of view, combing all kinds of "stones" in ancient books are all basic and pioneering work, and the significance cannot be ignored.
3. Geology in my eyes
We geologists have the most opportunity to travel, carrying a cloth bag and an awl, studying the riches of the underground and tracing the history of the ancient times, which is our duty. However, in addition to knocking stones, the situation of the mountains and rivers in the places we pass through has all kinds of human conditions and products that are worth studying, and they are often related to our stones. If you just knock on the stone and don't care about everything, won't you live up to the long journey?From the strength of this willpower and understanding, it is very clear that people are capable and spiritual. Nowadays, the more refined the specialized research, the narrower the goal, so the general observation is narrow, but it is not as good as the previous scholars, although sometimes the special research is a little less precise, but in the general observation is often outlined, can see the big picture. This is a passage from Mr. Weng Wenhao's preface to Yang Zhongjian's "Northwest Section".
In December 1920, ** occurred in the Haiyuan area, Weng Wenhao (left), Xie Jiarong (right) and others went to investigate. June 1921 in a tent in Sunjiagou, Xixiang, Jingning County, Gansu Province.
The current "geology" seems to be converging into today's "great geology", with mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grass and sand as a whole, in fact, in Mr. Weng Wenhao's words, you can see a little sprout. This is the same as the geology in my eyes, there is room for it.
"The Father of Chinese Dinosaurs" Mr. Yang Zhongjian
and "Sections of the Northwest" book shadow
When it comes to geology, we can't help but talk about the group of people who rely on geology to make a living - geologists are very open-minded, very simple, and have no careful eyes, which may be related to their long-term dealings with nature. "Looking up at the vastness of the universe and looking down at the prosperity of categories", this profession itself is heroic and dry. Geologists are also in good health, such as the late Academician Yang Zunyi, who still rides a bicycle to work at the age of 80, which is difficult to imagine in other industries.
Returning to the subject and thinking about it carefully, the theme of geology in ancient books is itself contradictory: geology is a concept that was introduced after the New Culture Movement, how can there be geology in ancient books?
But why can't there be geology in ancient books?Those of us who know a little bit about geology are lucky enough to read a few ancient books. If you combine the two, from the perspective of the present, of course there is geology in ancient books, but it just needs to be sorted out by modern people.
We hold a "Prospecting Lecture Hall" here, and this article is a modification of the theme I shared on the "Little Lecture Hall". When I shared what I thought of as "oil", I was told by a colleague who had worked there that it should be natural asphalt, not oil. I would like to write it down to express my gratitude.
Regarding the composition of cold food powder, Mr. Yu Jiaxi's "Cold Food Powder Examination" is discussed in a special article, so I will not repeat it. Lu Xun's article "The Manners of the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Relationship between Articles and Medicine and Wine" also said that its composition, "The basic of Wushi San is probably five kinds of medicine: stone stalactites, stone sulfur, white quartz, purple quartz, and red stone fat;In addition, I am afraid that there will be some different medicines. But you don't have to look into it now, I don't think you want to eat it. ”
Dongpo Zhilin" volume five: "The world has stalactites, black beaks and indulged in wine, so those who seek longevity start with He Yan." Yan is young and rich, so he takes cold food to help his desires, and there is no blame. The poison of Wushisan is undoubtedly huge, and Sun Simiao, who is known as the king of medicine, said: "Wushisan is very poisonous. I'd rather eat wild kudzu than take five stones. ......Nineteen Ancient Poems" said: "Taking food to seek immortals is mostly mistaken by medicine." "The phenomenon of taking medicinal stones in order to live forever is the most accurate summary.
References: 1] Zhang Hongzhao. A Brief History of the Development of Geology in China[M].The Commercial Press, 1956
2] Hu Shi. There is a little evidence to say a few words [m].Peking University Press, 2014
3] Huang Shiyi. Zhu Zi Language Class Hui School[M].Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2016
4] Shen Kuo. Dream Creek Writing Talk (1-2 volumes)[M].Chung Hwa Book Company, 1985
5] by Wang Jiakui. "Compendium of Materia Medica" general knowledge [M].Chung Hwa Book Company, 2023
6] Tang Duan Cheng formula. Youyang Miscellaneous [M].Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2012
7] Wu Qijun, "Southern Yunnan Mining Plant Map" Proofreading [M].Southwest Jiaotong University Press, 2018
8] Yuan Hao asked. Continuation of Yi Jianzhi with chronology [M].Chung Hwa Book Company, 1985
9] Hu Wenhui. A Chinese History of Kissing [M].Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2023
10] Wang Jiayin. Mineral historical data of the Compendium of Materia Medica[M].Science Press, 1957
11] Yang Zhongjian. Northwest section [m].Joint Books, 2014
12] Wang Yangzhi. Shen Kuo's contribution to the petroleum industry[J].Journal of China University of Petroleum:Social Sciences, 1988(3):4
Author Affilications:Sichuan Institute of Nuclear Geological Survey
Editor: Zhao Ruxin
Proofreading: Wu Shuyu, Jiang Shumin, Liu Qijun